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Monday, 21 May 2012

ME 3: Present in a box

It's pretty frustrating, but my boyfriend wanted to upgrade his pc with some new hardware, and now he's reinstalling everything on it. Sure, the result might be grand, but this means that I'm not able to log into SWTOR or LOTRO until it's all done! I usually shamelessly hop to his computer to take screenshots from LOTRO for this blog (his graphics are way better), and I can't run SWTOR on my own computer. I can't post anything about those games right now, so I guess I'll have to expose you to more Mass Effect talk.

Not that that is bad: Mass Effect 3 is very exciting! Now the Reapers are attacking Earth, it feels like everything you do is urgent. I keep facepalming at how different races fail to understand that it's crucial to work together. Luckily I'm making some progress there, and people seem to understand the need better when the threat becomes worse. I just hope we're still in time.

What's in the box?

So what are we staring at on the picture above? It was one of the coolest moments of Mass Effect 3 so far: finding a living Prothean on Eden Prime. He was hibernating in a special survival pod until we woke him up. Thousands of years ago, when the Protheans realized they could not win their war to the Reapers, they decided that they would hibernate, arising with an army when the next cycle would start and the Reapers would have retreated. Sadly enough for them, the Protheans did not have enough power to maintain or reactivate themselves after so many years: they were dependent on species of the future to find them. Then, they would arise with their whole army and seize power over the galaxy of that cycle.

They didn't know that the Reapers would find many of their chambers, and destroy them. Of that whole frozen army, only one Prothean remained: the one we found, called Javik, who embodied the concept of "vengeance" to his people. I must say I was a bit disappointed in our Prothean only being a fighter and a warrior. He's not able to help us create our superweapon at all. Javik does have a great personality, though. He remembers every race he encounters from what they looked like 50,000 years ago, and it is not much of a surprise that he feels superior to them. His remarks are priceless. It's also funny to see how much this freshly awoken Prothean differs from how Liara imagined him. Having studied all known aspects of Prothean life, Liara thought they would fit her own ideals: intelligent scientists that would do everything to stop the Reaper threat. Instead, the Protheans turned out to have had a martial culture, steering an empire that oppressed many alien races. It's cute to see her struggle with this and funny to hear Javik complain about what silly questions the "Liara-Asari" keeps posing him.

Shepard's boyfriends

Speaking of which, I started a relationship with Liara now. In Mass Effect 1, I accidentally ended up with Kaidan. Yes, accidentally. That guy just really talks you into things. I recall something happening as follows:

- Kaidan: "Why do you ask all these things?"

- Shepard conversation option:

1) Interested in how Kaidan is doing (I read this as: you're a nice guy)

Then in Mass Effect 2, he's apparently happy to see me, but doesn't trust me because I work with Cerberus and I didn't contact him to tell him about it (err, you were on a secret mission, so I wasn't able to track you down, in case you don't remember?) and he walks away angrily from you. After you've killed the Collectors and everything, you see him again in Mass Effect 3 and he STILL doesn't trust you. Seriously, that guy has trusting issues. He doesn't even give me time to explain myself, he just keeps doubting me. That guy just needs a psychologist, not me. I've totally had it with him.

Liara, on the contrary, became more awesome by the day. I think she has one of the strongest character progressions of all companions. She was this really cute naive scientist in Mass Effect 1, but grows to be a wise Shadow Broker. She can still be cute from time to time, but I guess my Shepard likes that. When I told her in the Citadel I wanted to be more than friends she reacted in her old shy but happy way and gave me a small kiss. I'm usually not into character romances (I don't enjoy watching kissing and sex scenes), but I think this one is the cutest I've seen so far.

4 comments
:

Ooooh, thanks for warning me that Kaidan's a jerk. I wanted to seduce him in ME1, but only girls allowed for a male Shepard in that one. I kept him around hoping for a second try, but now maybe I'll regret it. :-P

Haha, he's not really a jerk, perhaps I overreacted a bit. He's just really a sensitive guy who's doubting himself and everything around him all the time. I guess I'm not patient enough (I'm busy saving the galaxy, stop whining!) I had no idea you were playing Mass Effect too! Are you playing ME 2 or 3 at the moment? There's another option besides Kaidan in ME 3, and he's kinda hot (only he's not interested in FemSheps, boohoo ;)).

I finished ME1 maybe a month and a half ago, but I wanted to play through again to make the "right" choices and import the character for ME2 (and get more achievements). Typical perfectionist me. :) I haven't started that yet, though - my game time always ends up on Lotro or doing Lua stuff. Also, I don't know if I'll be able to play ME3 - I bought it, but seems like it needs Windows 7 and I only have XP AND I just reinstalled my whole system, so I don't really want to upgrade and do that all again.

Hahah, I liked his sensitive side (counselor in me?) so maybe we will get along better. He just needs a strong partner to take care of him. ;) Now you have me curious about the new guy in ME3, so I'll try to hurry up and get back to playing!

I liked Kaidan in ME 1 too. Just see what happens and what you want to do. About the choices: I totally understand how you want to make the "right ones" everywhere, they affect the story in the two coming games! I'm lucky that I didn't have to do anything over myself. There's always the save editor, of course, but it just feels like cheating to change anything there that you haven't actually done.

Let me know what you think of the other ME-games when you get there. I personally loved them all so much! ME 2 was also very exciting, they all just have such brilliant stories. Only downside for me is the fighting system - shooters just really aren't my thing. Luckily I can deploy Fin for that! :P